How to Paint a Car Interior

One way to spice up an old car is to paint the car’s interior. Doing so requires some research, because nobody should attempt to paint their care without having a good handle on how to paint a car interior. Remember, this is the part of your automobile that people are going to sit in and have time to examine, so any flaw is likely to stand out doubly-so.

Why Paint a Car Interior?

At the same time, painting the interior of a car gives new character, freshness and pizzazz to your vehicle. With a few household items and inexpensive materials, you can paint the interior of your car. Unlike most painting jobs, painting the interior of your car is a fairly quick and easy process, especially with the spray paints available today in service shops or online.

Painting your car’s interior could help your car achieve a brand-new, clean look with minimal mess or trouble. Learning how to paint a car interior yourself is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a car shop to do the same thing. There are a lot of options to choose from when you consider painting a car interior, though, which can be stifling.

Which Paint Do I Paint My Car Interior With?

Take note that appropriate paints exist for plastic, vinyl and leather car interiors. There are even ways to recolor your seats and carpeted car ceilings. Make sure you understand the kinds of material that adorn your car interior, so that you can choose the corresponding paints to use.

Getting Ready to Paint Your Car Interior

The first step to take before you can paint your car interior is to cover your car’s seats with protective plastic sheets. Recolor your seats last in a painting job, to protect them from the paints you use on the main dashboard. Remove any miscellaneous items or accessories that might get in the way of your painting job.

Painting a Dashboard

If you plan on painting the dashboard, you need to remove as many knobs, buttons, trays and dials as possible. Wash these car parts gently with soap and water. Dry them thoroughly.

Many people prefer using a blow dryer to get into the small cracks and kinks of knobs and buttons. Whatever you choose, place them aside after you have dried them.

Go back into your car and wipe and/or scrub your dashboard with a rag of gentle soap and water. Make sure to scrub out the stains. Clear protecting agents that seal your dashboard and prevent paints from adhering to it.

Wipe the soapy substance out with a wet rag and dry the dashboard thoroughly with a clean, dry rag.

Interior of Your Automobile

How to Paint Car Interior

While your dashboard continues to dry, use painter’s masking tape, which is thin and blue, to seal the edges of your car interior. This ensures the painting job is a neat one.

Apply painter’s masking tape to items on your dashboard that you do not want painted. These items include your radio and vents, among other things. Use sand paper over the hard plastic surfaces of your dashboard, since this makes it easier for the paint to adhere to it.

Wipe the dust with a wet rag. Clean your dashboard and its respective knobs, buttons and other separate pieces again with some rubbing alcohol.

Painting Your Car Interior

In learning how to paint a car interior, begin your painting job with a quality primer. PG epoxy primers called DP are a good fit for most car interiors, since they last for a long time and don’t emit as many hazardous fumes as other primers do.

Don’t take this to mean you shouldn’t wear protective gear while priming/painting your car, because you should always wear a face mask, goggles and sometimes gloves to protect yourself from the harmful chemicals within paints and primers. Keep the car windows rolled down during the painting process, to increase ventilation in the car.

Applying Primer to the Interior

Apply the primer to your car in thin coats. Allow the primer to dry completely before you actually paint the interior of your car. When you choose paints for your car interior, try to find one that is least toxic, especially because interior car paints emit hazardous fumes even after they dry.

For instance, if you’re driving your car one day and it’s hot outside, the heat can cause the paint to emit toxic fumes.

Applying the Paint

Apply two even coats to the interior of your car, so that the paint has a better chance of adhering and lasting permanently. Don’t forget to carefully paint your separate knobs and buttons, before installing them back into your car’s interior. Wait for at least 24 hours, which gives the paint time to dry completely, before doing anything more.

Choose to recolor the seats or fabric ceiling of your car, after the rest of your car is painted and dried. To do this, buy an upholstery spray at any auto shop and apply it carefully to your seats and other fabric parts. Make sure to wait for your seats to dry completely, before driving your car. Drying your seats may take a bit longer than drying the paint on your dashboard.

Painting your car interior doesn’t take more than a couple of days. This gives your car a fresh new feel. Many different car paints are available and easy to use, even if you don’t consider yourself a good painter.

This might sound like a lot of trouble to paint the inside of your car, but you have to offset this against the time spent making money to pay a body shop to do the same thing. Educating yourself on how to paint a car interior, rather than taking it to the shop, can also save you a lot of money and takes little skill.